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Man Dead After Threatening Officers With Rifle

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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – An officer-involved shooting in the Pleasant Grove neighborhood has claimed the life of a man who pointed a rifle at Dallas police officers.

Witnesses say the man, identified as 37-year-old Robert Williams, was walking through the neighborhood Thursday afternoon with the gun in his hands shouting at something or someone. Police were called to confront him, and when officers arrived they found him in the 9500 block of Castlefield Drive.

When ordered to drop the gun Williams kept walking toward officers. According to Dallas Police he then raised the weapon and pointed it at the officers, who feared for their lives and shot him.

Officers would not say if Williams actually threatened to or did shoot at them, but witness Robert Hester said Williams didn’t appear to be threatening. “And he had a gun pointed down toward the street and was carrying it like it was not ‘up,’ he was just carrying the gun down.”

Hester saw Williams just prior to the shooting and said he had been yelling at someone and thought Williams was on the phone with some kind of Blue Tooth device.

Williams was transported to Baylor University Medical Center, where he later died.

Dallas police have a Special Investigative Unit inside the homicide division which investigates all officers’ actions during police-related shootings.